By Kevin Woodhouse
www.thesuburban.com
Provincial Finance Minister and Robert-Baldwin MNA Carlos Leitão spoke to a full house last Friday at the Marriott in Dorval as part of the West Island Chamber of Commerce lecture series that included business leaders and municipal and provincial representatives.
Leitão’s central message to the assembled was that although the province of Quebec was able to get over the global recession of 2009 and that the government’s proposal to reduce the deficit is constant, slow growth “will be the backdrop for the next couple of years and we will face much slower paced and complex economic growth,” said Leitão.
The previous PQ government’s 18-month reign that focused on language politics, referendums and a charter of values did nothing to augment investment in Quebec, Leitão said. And while there was more growth this year than in 2013, “consumer spending has likely hits its limit due to personal debt and job security concerns.
“Demographics will also play a major role in Quebec as there will be less people in the 15-64 age group and as the province ages, this gap will only widen even further,” said Leitão. “We need to get used to a slower paced economy that won’t match the steady growth of the last two decades.”
With slower expectations on the economy for the next few years, Leitão noted that government finances will “be problematic for growth and that it cannot be up to the government to create jobs; that is the role of the private sector.”
With 60 per cent of the government’s program spending going directly towards salaries, the finance minister stated that “the debt will explode if unchecked and we will have to find ways to finance new programs that are essential such as having working sprinklers in all seniors citizens’ residences.”
Leitão explained that the “in the world of very sluggish, economic growth, we cannot be spending more than the government receives in revenue which is about 3.5 per cent to play with. We are trying to control growth and spending without having to cut programs savagely.”
While balancing program cuts matched with government spending with numbers the tax payers can bear, Leitão also wants to ensure “that we create a favourable environment for private investment in Quebec.”
In terms of what the Liberals will spend money on, Leitão said that within the next decade, the government plans to spend 90 billion on infrastructure projects that include the Dorval Circle and the new Turcot Interchange.
The government plans to release its reports on the future of certain programs in the fall with the Liberal’s fiscal report due out by December.
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